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Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Songwriter Workshop in January

I'm co-hosting a songwriting workshop with my lovely spouse Jildaat a local bookstore on January 8, 2011 It's an introduction to songwriting class that covers a lot of the very basics of the craft. The tools you would normally need to write a song might include:A DictionaryA ThesaurusA Rhyming DictionaryYour instrument (mine's a guitar, but Jilda writes on a piano). Obviously if you do lyrics only, you'd need to partner with a co-writer to help with the melody.And you'd need a hook-book. A hook-book is a blank notebook that you keep with you and capture your ideas for songs. I actually keep up with my hooks in my iPhone, but anything will do as long as it's available when ideas strike.A small digital or tape recorder is also invaluable to capture the songs during the writing process because we've written songs before and then forgot the melody. Bummer.We'll also discuss the various song structures. Most of the stuff we've written falls into the country, folk, or Americana genre, but we can offer some limited guidance for other genres too.People ALWAYS want to know about copyrights and when they should register songs. For those who want to get serious about songwriting we'll discuss a little about co-writing ethics, performing rights organizations, publishing, and record companies.We'll probably write a group song during the workshop to show people how the process works.I think it will be fun. If any of you live around central Alabama and would like to attend the event, just let us know. The location is Woni's Bookshelf and admission is free.Jilda have been writing for well over thirty years and we've posted some of our songs on our new website. If you'd like to hear a few of the things that were cut (recorded) by other people, click here:http://rickandjilda.com/Music.html

I was hoping you would share your songs. I don't have time today, but make sure you do a link so I can check it out later. I love John Denver...so when you said fold music I thought...hmm, someone new to love. Merry Christmas, thanks for following me.NancyN. R. Williams, fantasy author